Wednesday, February 20, 2013

I'm bored, so I'm blogging...

I haven't talked about what I'm doing in a while, so I feel like I should talk about things-both writing and not writing-related.
For once in a blue moon, I have pictures. XD

1. Sweetheart Dance with my friends...


My mom insisted on taking a gazillion pictures. Since our main computer is down right now, she emailed them to me yesterday. This is the best, in my opinion, excluding my sister dancing and jumping in the background...
 2. Finishing the Summer Colors of You

I estimate I have about 30 pages left. Maybe more, but I've taken a break recently to just think about it. I don't want to go too fast and I definitely don't want to do anything confusing, so sitting around thinking about it is probably my best course right now.

3. Studying Spanish. Tu hablas espanol? Because I certainly would like to. Oh, and Korean, too. But I'm a pathetic student, so I can't ask if someone speaks Korean yet. But I'll get there.

4. Applying for jobs. Yep.

5. This-
Aaron Yan as Alex Chan, And Then There Were Seven

Leehom Wang as Kevin Chan, And Then There Were Seven  
In other words, another idea floating around which I'm planning on laying to rest att least until I finish this semester of college, maybe longer. Or perhaps I will never write it at all. Oh, well, the pictures are nice. :P

6. Brother is sick with type B flu.

It's not fun. Don't you ever think the flu is fun. He's run a fever for....six days. Yeah. Ugh.

7. This-
My favorite boy band did a comeback. And for once, all of the members have reasonable hairstyles. Some of you will undoubtedly watch this and say 'What do you mean? Their hairstyles are awful!' but here are some examples of last year's comeback promotionals-
I mean, I love the gypsy/Native American/hippie theme and I love the album, but if they were going for that couldn't they have at most left it black and at least not curled it?



Life also demands that I stop my random post and go to do English, so that's what I will do. I leave you all in happy dance




Thursday, February 14, 2013

Valentine's Day


Valentine's Day is confusing for me.
Valentine's Day is depressing-because I am single. I think that's a given-even people like me, with how boring I am, get lonely without a boyfriend on such a hyped-up couple-concentrated holiday. I normally don't get that depressed, because then I remember...
Valentine's Day makes me happy-because I am single. Good grief, who on earth wants a boyfriend at my age, anyway? (I sound like an elderly lady, don't I?) But honestly, I have no interest in romantic relationships at this point in my life. Why do I want to dedicate myself to that much time spent on someone in a romantic relationship when I probably won't even consider marriage until my mid-twenties? And then I think about...
Valentine's Day makes me freaked out-because I am single. This is free-for-all day, in a way. Who knows what might happen on Valentine's Day? I confess I have not been to WalMart (the most interesting and crowded place in my entire town) on Valentine's Day in several years. I promise I'm not scared. Okay, maybe I'm a little scared.

Why does it make me feel so conflicted? Maybe confusion is a part of being young. That's what a lot of people enjoy chalking problems up to. Hey, even I enjoy chalking my problems up to youth. It's an easy target.
Part of me believes I should just stop thinking about it, which is what I'm about to do. XD 
But not before I post this very interesting song/video. Haha. Yeah, that's what I do after saying I'm not interested in romantic relationships-hunt down Infinite's Hoya. -_-







 I've probably watched this video a good six times now, and it's not because I legitimately spend time hunting down Hoya. Instead, the visuals catch my attention more than the singers/rappers. The tones of this video are pretty. Especially the clashing red, white, and black. The burning book pages. The glass breaking backwards. The song is about a guy who feels so lonely when his girl isn't there that he wants her by his side constantly. The video seems to portray that, but I can't decide if the girl is already gone and he's reflecting on what he remembers of her and how much it hurts, or if she's just not there at the moment, and he's expressing the misery that comes with waiting for her return. In a funny way it reminds me of 10cm's 'I'm Afraid of the Dark' lyrically, because he (the singer/rapper) is being a little whiny and 'aegyo' about his predicament of not being with her constantly. 10cm portrays it in a rascally, childish, and fuzzy-soft way, whereas Infinite H seems to go with a lonely, desperate, edgy approach.

I don't know. The song's repetitive, easy-to-remember chorus 'niga eopseulttae' gets itself lodged in a person's brain, so I can't stop singing it around the house. >.<

-Argentia


Monday, February 11, 2013

I Became Hollow, Prologue


 Just a little something I've been thinking about writing recently. I don't know if it will ever come to fruition, but it's an idea I'll have swirling around in my head until I get tired of it. Since writing is sort-of a hobby for me right now, this will most likely be on the back-burner for a long time.

 Anyway, a synopsis-

  His name was Lee Tae Kang. He passed away December 20th, 2009, at ten thirty-seven at night, and he was the first Hallyu star to die at the hands of his fans.  He was my best friend.

 Kim Ha Neul is nearing his 31st birthday and beginning his second semester of college in the United States when the death of a classmate triggers the return of his severe anxiety and depression. On top of that, his dark feelings only become worse when an old friend comes to visit, bringing with him baggage that Ha Neul hoped to have left behind in South Korea. At the same time, the bitter is contrasted with the sweet of finding Millie, a new classmate who knows nothing about Ha Neul until she begins tutoring him in English Composition. Ha Neul finds in the curious and hypocritically cautious girl a unique escape from his world of trauma and darkness.



 Prologue: September 14th, 2012

 The piercing brown eyes of my classmate stare out at me from the front page of the college website on my smartphone. The text beneath it reads-
 Allan Wong, 23, died Friday night at around three A.M. when he was involved in a head-on collision with a drunk driver. I stop myself from continuing, but my fingers still begin shaking. Of every situation that had run through my head last night when he wouldn't answer his phone, this was the last one I had thought of. Even if we hadn't been that close, he was my friend. I clasp the cell phone in my hands tighter, but they only shake more.
 Don't think about it. Don't think about it.
 But as soon as I tell myself that, the old memories come flooding back, memories of a time long before Allan, university, Business degrees, and English.
 Changmin's expressionless, lifeless face, swollen eyes closed, ashen lips slightly parted. Even though I had rushed to his side, as soon as I touched his cold skin, I knew he was gone. At least he is now in peace. But I still mourned. I don't remember every detail, but the tears that myself and my fellow members shed over that body are innumerable. When he was taken away, I refused to release his hand. I had been young and foolish, I suppose, but even now I can remember the smoothness of his palm and his rough, worn fingertips brushing my hand for the last time. 
 My heart wrenches inside my chest, tying itself into an agonizing knot. Fear begins shooting through my veins as I think of how just hours before he had been smiling and laughing at me on stage.
 I glance around myself as the sensation of being watched starts to crawl into my soul and eat me alive. I see their hungry eyes, hear their tormenting screams, and feel their violating fingers searching every inch of my body for more, more, more. More of what? The small question sparks like the wick of a candle in the dark innner depths of my mind, but I extinguish it by breaking into a run. And not the grueling ones we would do during our trainee days, and not the happy ones we did when we won our first award. No, it is a careless, reckless, lifeless run, one that I could have kept up for miles. I ignore everything I see; it is all nonsense language I don't speak, anyway. That's what I tell myself as I hurtle across the crowded street without waiting for the light, ignoring the horns honking and breaks screeching because I can't see, think, or hear over the pressure building inside of me. The tears about to break loose.
 Quite suddenly, I trip over something in my path. Someone in my path. Books, papers, coffee, and her purse go flying as I plow her over and then hook my foot on her ankle. The next moment I know, I find myself lying stomach to the ground, with her lying in a pile on top of me.
 In that instant, the little part of me that was still whole falls to pieces. My hands bleeding from their impact with the sidewalk, my stomach aching, I slip out from under her. She says something to me, her words angry and hurt, but I don't bother trying to decipher them. Instead, I crawl up against the brick wall like a wounded animal, pulling my legs to my chest, and stare at my scraped knees as tears begin to blur my vision. Fear takes over so that rationality itself evades me completely until I feel her hand on my shoulder.
 "...okay?" I make out just a little of her strange words. I nod my head, even if it's so far from the truth it makes me feel like a criminal. Her face says she doesn't believe me. She goes to gather her papers and purse, but leaves the coffee to go streaking down the sidewalk and instead returns to my side, purse and wrinkled papers clutched in one hand, the other hand on my shoulder. Her hazel eyes peer into mine with a heartfelt concern and pity that breaks down every wall I had tried to construct. And I begin to cry.


-Argentia

Sunday, February 10, 2013

To Be Frozen

To Be Frozen

A cold sheet of ice covers all tonight
I remember the summer
Time of my flight, my freedom, my love
Faded, like looking through the foggy glass

The world appears pretty in its icy casement
It just sparkles, hiding everything
This is, I suppose, my time of remembrance,
My time of closed doors

Strangers seem comforting to me
As if the cold has driven me numb
I forget my reckless summer love
And I put away spring's companionship

Deceptive as it may seem, I hide my trembling
Even if the air is so chilly that I hate it
I am still caught in this frozen expanse
Somehow willingly living through this season

Friday, February 8, 2013

The Hangul Alphabet Paper



This is a paper I just wrote for English class. Figured it was decent enough to share. ^^

Less Challenging Than It Appears 
         As soon as I tell someone with no previous knowledge of the Korean language that I can read Hangul, which is the Korean alphabet, they look at me with amazement. I realize that this is because of a common misconception that all foreign writing systems are difficult to learn.  What my friends and many others don’t realize is that although most foreign writing systems, such as Chinese, are a great challenge, the Korean alphabet is an exception.


           At one time I also thought that Hangul would be very hard to learn, and that like the Japanese writing system, would take me several months to learn. I did not realize that originally, Koreans formed their words with borrowed Chinese characters. Because of the complexity and confusion created by using the Chinese alphabet for the Korean language, very few Koreans other than those in the upper classes could read or write (Korean Overseas Information Service 49). Hangul was invented in 1443 by scholars of the Hall of Worthies (a group created in 1420 that was in charge of scholarly writings) under the reign of King Sejong the Great. King Sejong originally called Hangul ‘hunmin cheong-eum’ or ‘proper sounds to instruct the people’ and first appeared in a document called by the same name, Hunmin Cheong-eum, in 1446. According to Sejong, the Korean alphabet was invented to give all of his subjects the ability to write in their own language without the use Chinese characters (Korean Overseas Information Service 66).
            The Hangul alphabet consists of 24 separate vowels and consonants. When constructing the alphabet, King Sejong and the scholars who assisted him based the sixteen initial consonants on five basic forms that were intended to mimic the position of the tongue in the mouth when making that particular sound (Korean Overseas Information Service 48) . Envisioning these movements of the tongue can help learners remember the sound behind the character they are reading. The Korean alphabet has clear writing rules that dictate how syllables are formed. By fitting letters into a box shape in either a clockwise or up and down order, Hangul makes writing efficient and easy to read. All spelling rules of Hangul are clear and concise, and they rarely change. These characters make the writing system very easy to master, even if you are not a native Korean speaker. For example, it took me about four hours to memorize the alphabet, and only a few months to become skilled enough to read it quickly, even if I couldn’t understand the meaning behind what I was reading. I have spoken with other English speakers who agree that Hangul is very simple to learn.
            In conclusion, Hangul may look intimidating to some, but it is a writing system that was designed for simplicity and sensibility, as a solution to the complicated Chinese characters that intimidate so many into not learning to read and write in an East Asian language.  


Works Cited

Korean Overseas Information Service. A Handbook of Korea. Seoul: Samhwa Printing Co., Ltd., 1993. Paper.

Friday, February 1, 2013

Experience

This strange feeling now comes over me.
Not like the ocean's waves crashing against me
Or like the harsh sunlight beating down on my back

No, like the mud seeping into my sandals
After the long, quiet summer rain as it is
Dripping off my umbrella and dribbling on my bare toes

I can't decide what I think about the feeling
It breaks into the chambers of my heart
As lights break the darkness in a labyrinth of tunnels

Before I know it, this fleeting feeling tears me apart
Like branches ripped away in a violent storm
Leaving the debris scattered in the depths of my being

This distance, it is like trying to cross the entire world on foot
I take deep breaths of the free, open air
A reassurance that not everthing is as hopeless and far as it seems

The feeling is painful, but I will learn from it
Slowly, as the sun sets in the evening and rises in the morning
Slowly, in due time, but in a better time than mine...

I will go, I will see, I will understand, and I will have courage.